<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>There Will be Darkness Again (and again, and again) by mulderitsdee</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23094967">There Will be Darkness Again (and again, and again)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mulderitsdee/pseuds/mulderitsdee'>mulderitsdee</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Let the awful song be heard [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Black Friday - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Gen, Introspection, The Black and White (Black Friday), Unreliable Narrator, autistic paul</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 12:41:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,465</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23094967</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mulderitsdee/pseuds/mulderitsdee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> This is the space between dimensions. The Black and White. This is not the first time you have asked these questions, Paul Matthews, and it will not be the last. </i>
</p><p>After the events at Starlight Theatre Paul wakes up to darkness, to the black and white, and to a voice that tells him that this has happened before, and will happen again. Paul tries to stop it (again).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Paul Matthews &amp; Emma Perkins, Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Let the awful song be heard [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843453</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>There Will be Darkness Again (and again, and again)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There is an explosion.</p><p>Paul pulls the pin off the grenade, and there is an explosion. The whole world goes up in flames and noise-so much noise-screaming that sounds more like harmonies-and light-and pain-and fire-and noise-and noise and noise and-</p><p>Silence. </p><p>Blessed, beautiful silence. Paul wraps himself in it, doesn’t bother to think about the why or the hows, just lets himself drift in nothingness for seconds or hours. </p><p>Where is he?</p><p>Opening his eyes is pointless, Paul tries it, briefly, only to be met with perfect darkness-the kind he has always imagined you would find in the centre of a black hole. Is that what this is? As a kid Paul’s idea of heaven was always somewhere quiet, somewhere with no bright lights or loud noises. He would sit in the corner with his hands on his ears, eyes closed, pretending he was an astronaut floating around in the great nothingness of space. Maybe he did die and he was right about heaven the whole time. There are worse ways to spend eternity than this, he thinks. </p><p>
  <i>Paul</i>
</p><p>He doesn’t hear the voice, exactly, it’s just sort of...there. </p><p>
  <i>We meet again, Paul</i>
</p><p>Again? What does that mean? He doesn’t recognise the voice, it’s too soft and inhuman sounding-like a whisper brushing against his ear, except he hears it in his mind as clear as his own thoughts. </p><p>“Who’s there?” he asks, voice breaking the perfect silence and making him flinch. Or maybe he’s talking in his head too, it’s hard to tell. </p><p>
  <i>My identity is not important. You cannot stay here.</i>
</p><p>“Where is...here?”  </p><p>
  <i>This is the space between dimensions. The Black and White. This is not the first time you have asked these questions, Paul Matthews, and it will not be the last.</i>
</p><p>That is-that’s a lot to take in. Paul frowns, turns the words over in his mind. He’s no expert, he’ll admit, but he feels like if he’d been in this-this Black and White before he would remember it, surely? It’s not like he makes a habit of doing...whatever this is. </p><p>“I don’t understand,” he admits. The voice seems to sigh, cold air rushes over Paul and makes whatever is left of him shiver. </p><p>
  <i>You never do. What happened today in Hatchetfield, the Apotheosis, the meteor-these things have happened before, they will happen again. They will not always look the same, but the ending is unchanging.</i>
</p><p>Images (memories?) suddenly flood Paul’s mind. Riots at the mall, people being murdered over a doll, the sound of a missile flying over head, mushroom clouds in the distance as the people of Hatchetfield run and scream, the meteor, Emma being grabbed-coming back to him with a song on her lips and eyes turned unearthly shade of blue, being tied to a chair by Hidgens as he raved about humanity’s last hope, the end of Hatchetfield, the end of the world, over and over and over again, his own death at the hands of the Hive, the professor, a knife. </p><p>And, in all of them, Emma. Her eyes wide with fear as her co workers started singing, clutching her nephew to her as the news talked about violence at the mall, her hand in Paul’s as they watched the comet streak of a missile over head, her hand in his each time he fails and the world falls apart around them.  Everything is still distant, out of touch, but Paul thinks that he might be crying. </p><p>“I fail,” he whispers to the darkness, “every time, I fail.” </p><p><i>And every time, you try.</i> Replies the voice, almost tender. More images flash through Paul’s mind, a hundred ways he has tried to save Hatchetfield, all the ways he has sacrificed himself for others; taking a bullet for Bill to throwing the grenade at his feet at Starlight. It’s surreal and even though Paul knows, somehow, that all of this is true, that this has all happened, he still can hardly believe it. He’s just...Paul, a staggeringly average guy who likes his coffee black and his sandwiches made with brown bread. Maybe that’s what made going to the theatre so easy-the world has hundreds of Paul Matthews, what is his death compared to the likes of Emma or Bill? </p><p>“What happens now?” another memory (vision? prediction?) washes over him like a wave. Emma looking at him with undisguised terror, his voice high and clear as he sings, his hands reaching towards her and- “oh god,” he groans, he feels sick, “no, no, please, no I can’t-I won’t-please.” </p><p><i>This is how it ends</i> the voice sounds almost regretful, but Paul cannot bring himself to care about any false sympathy it may have. He tries to connect his mind and his body, to force his legs to move him away into the darkness. </p><p>“I won’t, I won’t, I won’t,” he repeats the words until his voice is raw, shaking and staggering through the dark. “I won’t, don’t make me, I won’t, not like that, let me stay here instead, I won’t, don’t make me one of them, I won’t hurt Emma, I won’t, please, I won’t, I won’t, I-” </p><p>
  <i>You must</i>
</p><p>“No!” his voice cracks and splinters along with whatever is left of his composure. Here in the Black and White he can feel all of it. Every death, every person he failed to save, every fucking way that Hatchetfield has torn his heart out and made him bleed. Paul makes a choice: not again. Even if it means staying here for the rest of eternity, he will not go back as one of the Hive, and he will not go back just to face this all again. He is only one man, but there are good people in Hatchetfield who don’t deserve this and Paul is so incredibly tired. “You can fix this, you can make it so-so that it never happens, please, God, please don’t make me do it.” </p><p>Silence again, although no longer as perfect as it was. Paul’s hyper aware of the pounding in his chest and the way his frantic pulse rings in his ears. If it sends him back, if it makes him one of them, he won’t remember any of this. If he did then maybe-maybe he’d have a chance to warn someone, or to steal one of P.I.E.P’s guns and take matters into his own hands before a single note comes out of his lips. Please, he thinks and knows that the voice hears him, if nothing else give me a chance for that. </p><p><i>It will hurt,</i> says the voice after an age. <i>If I change things, they will not be the same, and you will hurt Paul Matthews. </i></p><p>“I know,” and he does, somehow. </p><p>
  <i>This is your last chance. You could let things be as they are, you will not hurt, you will not remember. </i>
</p><p>“No, I’m done hiding, change it. Fix me-please, I won’t-” </p><p>
  <i>Very well. </i>
</p><p>                                                                                              - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</p><p>There is an explosion, and then there is silence, and then-</p><p>It’s the rhythmic beeping of machinery that Paul notices first. A heart monitor, maybe, by the sound of it. He drifts for a while longer, soothed by the repetitive noise and a cloud of painkillers. Someone, somewhere, is speaking but he cannot make himself focus on their words. At the back of his mind there is a whisper of a memory, of a voice he did not recognise and a darkness so complete he thought he was in a black hole. </p><p>“Extensive burns-” says a voice not in his head </p><p>“Amputation-” says another. </p><p>Alarming words, probably, if he could connect them to any kind of meaning. There is something he should be doing, he thinks, someone he should be looking for. There was a helicopter crash, the theatre-the sickening feeling of fighting his own body, hands trembling as he tried to take the grenade from the belt and <i>what will I let in if I let it out?</i></p><p>Paul opens his eyes. He squints against light so bright it hurts and wonders if he is dead (again?). Slowly, painfully, the room comes into focus. He is on a hospital bed, machines surrounding him and bandages smothering his body. More importantly though, there is a hand on his. With great effort he rolls his head to the side and-</p><p>Oh. Oh. That’s who he should be looking for. </p><p>“Paul?” her voice is tentative, a little afraid but her brown eyes are shining with something close to hope. And oh she is alive, so very, very alive. Paul smiles (and his mouth is full of blue) and licks his lips (and there are thousands of voices singing in the back of his mind) and takes a breath (and his lungs expand ready to sing, and sing, and sing)</p><p>“Emma.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Guess who's back on their theatre kid bs it's me. Anyway I <i> might</i> write a follow up to this if that's something people could be interested in? Either way, let me just say: shwoopsie.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>